


Farkhad's Lessons

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Magic-Users, Mentors, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Solas is Fen'Harel, Teacher-Student Relationship, Teaching, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Farkhad Adaar may have been born a mage, but he knows very few spells, simply because no-one ever bothered to properly teach him before. Now, however, he is surrounded by fellow mages, all of whom share a bit of their knowledge with him. And he, in return, repays them for their lessons with kindness and friendship.





	1. The Shortened Version

**Author's Note:**

> Even though this story appears to have two chapters, they are identical, with the exception that the second chapter contains an extract featuring a character whose inclusion earned me some hate mail. So if you are not prepared to deal with his presence, please stop at the first chapter.

Before the curious turn of fate left him tossed into the middle of a raging battle against demons and evil cultists and abominations infected with Red Lyrium, Farkhad Adaar was not quite a common Tal-Vashoth. Upon first glance at him, at this sheepish-looking, shyly waving grey mountain topped by a couple of curving horns, most dignitaries visiting Skyhold (especially ones from Orlais) are ready to paint a picture of his past self as a mercenary, standing guard behind a noble's back and tossing around fire balls to clear a winding mountain road off brigands. But in actuality, Farkhad used to be a Circle mage... or some semblance of one, anyway.  
  
Found as a mewling, twitching grey lump on the doorstep of a Templar outpost that guarded the approach to the tower in Ostwick, he was raised together with the tiny elven and human children, who were first his playmates (to an extent as games were allowed by the Chantry overseers), and later became his studymates, after he began to show signs of magic at age five.  
  
But even though the Circle provided him with food (not as much as he would have liked, for resources were limited and could not be wasted in magnanimous amounts on a perpetually hungry, growing ox child), and with a roof over his head, and a shelter from those of his kin who would have sewn his mouth shut and put him on a leash, the training he received there did not go beyond a few of the most basic, apprentice-level spells. In truth, Farkhad was being kept around more as a servant than a student: tasked with hauling heavy objects and reaching for the topmost shelves and doing other chores that humans and elves did not have enough stamina for; permitted to read books about advanced magic but never to put what he'd learned into practice; locked out of classrooms where the older mages gathered to share their knowledge.  
  
The Templars were unsettled by the prospect of possibly dealing with a Qunari abomination, and their apprehension was stoked by the dark, grizzly rumours of the chaos caused by Farkhad's kind in Kirkwall. He was never even Harrowed, and he knew that there was a debate going on behind his back, whether or not to just make him Tranquil and be done with it.  
  
Ceaseless roundabout arguments on the matter were stretched out over several years, thanks to the stalling on the part of some Enchanters that had taken a liking to the soft-spoken, considerate young oxman who was always so kind to the children - but Farkhad suspected that, had it not been for the rebellion, the 'be done with it' side would have eventually won. Perhaps he would not even have minded being a Tranquil; it would have kept him from being so nervous and afraid of crowds all the time, and would have silenced the inner screams of mortification that rip him apart whenever he gets stuck in a doorway or steps on someone's foot or senses a pair of eyes boring into the sheet of paper he is scribbling a poem on.  
  
But the Maker chose to shape his life differently; the Circles are lost, and his new home is in an ancient labyrinthine castle, where he is supposed to sit on a throne and pass judgement and lead the armies of the faithful. And as it will not do for a supposedly mighty Inquisitor to know merely how to flop his hand around and conjure a flimsy spark of mage light, he is finally learning magic.  
  
He never would have imagined there was so much to find out. No books could have prepared him for venturing out into the boundless world of dazzling spells and intricate sigils and incantation chants written down on arm-long strips of parchment. It is a very... overwhelming world, bright and loud; exciting, of course, but mostly confusing. Very much so. At least he has teachers to help him make sense of it all.  
  
  
Madame Vivienne teaches him to maintain proper posture, and to keep his flustered mess of emotions in check when he is casting his spells.  
  
'Remember, my dear,' she is fond of saying, as she whacks him between the shoulder blades with a (very) long ruler to make him stop slouching and inhale properly.  
  
'Using magic is like using kindling. The most minor distraction, the slightest tremour of your hands - and you will burn down everything around you'.  
  
Of course, he will never be able to remain as impeccably composed, as perfectly in control as she is - but he does try his best. He does put effort into getting his huge, square-fingered hands to obey him when he is mixing delicately proportioned alchemical ingredients under Vivienne's strict supervision; into cleansing his mind while arcane energy pulses in his grasp, so that the initial dark, scorching, primal charge turns into the purest healing aura; and into steadying his pounding heartbeat and beating down the haunting thoughts that he is not good enough, not skilled enough, that he will never, ever make this spell work.  
  
And when there comes a time when Vivienne herself falters, a crack running through her icy countenance, and feels lost and crushed by grief, Farkhad is there to firmly support her with his huge, once clumsy hand, and to listen and soothe when she talks to him about Bastien. And when she looks up at him, calm and collected, the Iron Lady once more, there is a flicker of gratitude in her eyes. Because she, too, has learned something from her student.  
  
  
Dorian teaches him to wield the elements of destruction in a fight, to make the sky bleed purple with deadly lightning, and to make the earth crack and gush out jets of flame.  
  
They have already set many a training dummy on fire side by side as they train in Skyhold's courtyard, the huge Qunari trying awkwardly to synchronize his movements with those of the smaller, graceful human. And every time the poor straw thing burns to a crisp, Dorian always claps his hand against his big friend's back and says mischievously,  
  
'Well, that was a delight, wasn't it? You have to learn to relish your magic, my good fellow! You have the power to light things up with your mind - better make it a fantastical show, eh?'  
  
And when they are done with torching dummies, they slow down a little and trace runes together on the ground, intended to erupt with a gust of chilling wind, knocking back whoever steps on them and covering this hapless wretch's flesh in a constricting crust of ice. Farkhad's lines and symbols are crooked and loopy at first, earning him many a friendly jibe from Dorian - but he does learn, eventually.  
  
And even though he will never stride across the battlefield with the domineering confidence of his Tevinter companion, a spitting dark tempest following in his wake, at least he no longer shrieks in terror at the sight of flame tongues shooting out of his own fingertips, and the 'fantastical show' of his magic fireworks comes to draw a shy little smile out of him.  
  
When there are no more straw victims to turn to cinders, and no ground to cover with glowing lines, Farkhad and Dorian rest side by side, facing a hearth that the Qunari has lit all by himself, with a (very proud) shot of conjured flame, and talk about the victories this day has brought them. Victories that have nothing to do with unleashing their battle magic.  
  
Farkhad talks a bit about Josephine, and how lucky he is to have earned the favour of such a beautiful, gracious, refined lady - but then, he mumbles off into silence, and allows Dorian to tell him excitedly about how Farkhad's former Ben-Hassrath kinsman keeps referring to him as 'kadan', 'which is Qunlat for "my heart", is it not?'. About how he still cannot believe that someone is using such an endearment to refer to him, that he has been found worthy of affection, of something more than just a fleeting, forgettable affair...  
  
And, at the height of his boyishly carefree, bubbling tide of speech, Dorian checks himself and looks at Farkhad, taken aback by his own candour and a little bit ashamed of it - and when he sees that the Qunari mage's broad grey face is glowing with a smile of joy, he leans back, making himself even more comfortable, and allows his friend to hug him... And melts into a content grin that he would never have allowed himself back in Tevinter. Because he, too, has learned something from his student.  
  
  
  
And finally, Solas teaches Farkhad to walk the Fade. He reveals the enchanting secrets and the dangerous pitfalls concealed by the realm of dreams, and helps the timid, uncertain Qunari see that even he, untrained, un-Harrowed, has it in him not to fall prey to the demons he used to be so terrified of as a child.  
  
While their bodies rest in their Skyhold quarters or at a campsite in some remote corner of the wilderness, they plunge into the ever-shifting green mists, and walk across bridges that lead towards the sky... or maybe are twisted upside down so that their heads almost touch the water. They relive the memories of ages past, and unravel the cunning illusions spun by the denizens of the Fade out of the threads of their own subconscious.  
  
And after every walk with Solas, Farkhad wakes up insipired and, back in the world of solid forms and unchanging laws of nature, he whips out his trusty quill and parchment, and turns the whispers of the spirits into poems, generously borrowing the metaphors he saw quite literally shape themselves before his eyes when he traversed the dreamland. Like the vision of the clouds in the wintry sky turning into heavy fur wraps to warm the freezing moon, which is not the moon at all, but the round porcelain mask of an Orlesian mademoiselle, and the heaving sea below is her many-folded, glossy silken gown. Or the red street light's reflection across the wet pavement oozing like a streak of blood, dripping off the knife of an assassin that has just completed a job at a nearby pleasure house (that is a dark image, and Farkhad did not really enjoy it when the spirits showed him that, but at least, once he wrote down the description, it turned into something... semi-Varric-style?). Or dandelion seedlings floating through the hot, shimmering air on a summer day till the blend into a fuzzy white halo around the head of an elven woman that has sat down to rest in the green meadow.  
  
Farkhad reads out some things out of what he has written to Solas - one of the few people (apart from Josephine, of course) that he does not feel uncomfortable to share his poetry with. His blue eyes shine with child-like excitement when he does that; and he feels so full of life and warmth and happiness; so... so real. And the Dread Wolf bows his head, frowning at the sapling of fondness towards this trusting young Qunari that is taking root in his heart; and wonders whether he, too, has learned something from his student.


	2. The Original Version

Before the curious turn of fate left him tossed into the middle of a raging battle against demons and evil cultists and abominations infected with Red Lyrium, Farkhad Adaar was not quite a common Tal-Vashoth. Upon first glance at him, at this sheepish-looking, shyly waving grey mountain topped by a couple of curving horns, most dignitaries visiting Skyhold (especially ones from Orlais) are ready to paint a picture of his past self as a mercenary, standing guard behind a noble's back and tossing around fire balls to clear a winding mountain road off brigands. But in actuality, Farkhad used to be a Circle mage... or some semblance of one, anyway.  
  
Found as a mewling, twitching grey lump on the doorstep of a Templar outpost that guarded the approach to the tower in Ostwick, he was raised together with the tiny elven and human children, who were first his playmates (to an extent as games were allowed by the Chantry overseers), and later became his studymates, after he began to show signs of magic at age five.  
  
But even though the Circle provided him with food (not as much as he would have liked, for resources were limited and could not be wasted in magnanimous amounts on a perpetually hungry, growing ox child), and with a roof over his head, and a shelter from those of his kin who would have sewn his mouth shut and put him on a leash, the training he received there did not go beyond a few of the most basic, apprentice-level spells. In truth, Farkhad was being kept around more as a servant than a student: tasked with hauling heavy objects and reaching for the topmost shelves and doing other chores that humans and elves did not have enough stamina for; permitted to read books about advanced magic but never to put what he'd learned into practice; locked out of classrooms where the older mages gathered to share their knowledge.  
  
The Templars were unsettled by the prospect of possibly dealing with a Qunari abomination, and their apprehension was stoked by the dark, grizzly rumours of the chaos caused by Farkhad's kind in Kirkwall. He was never even Harrowed, and he knew that there was a debate going on behind his back, whether or not to just make him Tranquil and be done with it.  
  
Ceaseless roundabout arguments on the matter were stretched out over several years, thanks to the stalling on the part of some Enchanters that had taken a liking to the soft-spoken, considerate young oxman who was always so kind to the children - but Farkhad suspected that, had it not been for the rebellion, the 'be done with it' side would have eventually won. Perhaps he would not even have minded being a Tranquil; it would have kept him from being so nervous and afraid of crowds all the time, and would have silenced the inner screams of mortification that rip him apart whenever he gets stuck in a doorway or steps on someone's foot or senses a pair of eyes boring into the sheet of paper he is scribbling a poem on.  
  
But the Maker chose to shape his life differently; the Circles are lost, and his new home is in an ancient labyrinthine castle, where he is supposed to sit on a throne and pass judgement and lead the armies of the faithful. And as it will not do for a supposedly mighty Inquisitor to know merely how to flop his hand around and conjure a flimsy spark of mage light, he is finally learning magic.  
  
He never would have imagined there was so much to find out. No books could have prepared him for venturing out into the boundless world of dazzling spells and intricate sigils and incantation chants written down on arm-long strips of parchment. It is a very... overwhelming world, bright and loud; exciting, of course, but mostly confusing. Very much so. At least he has teachers to help him make sense of it all.  
  
  
Madame Vivienne teaches him to maintain proper posture, and to keep his flustered mess of emotions in check when he is casting his spells.  
  
'Remember, my dear,' she is fond of saying, as she whacks him between the shoulder blades with a (very) long ruler to make him stop slouching and inhale properly.  
  
'Using magic is like using kindling. The most minor distraction, the slightest tremour of your hands - and you will burn down everything around you'.  
  
Of course, he will never be able to remain as impeccably composed, as perfectly in control as she is - but he does try his best. He does put effort into getting his huge, square-fingered hands to obey him when he is mixing delicately proportioned alchemical ingredients under Vivienne's strict supervision; into cleansing his mind while arcane energy pulses in his grasp, so that the initial dark, scorching, primal charge turns into the purest healing aura; and into steadying his pounding heartbeat and beating down the haunting thoughts that he is not good enough, not skilled enough, that he will never, ever make this spell work.  
  
And when there comes a time when Vivienne herself falters, a crack running through her icy countenance, and feels lost and crushed by grief, Farkhad is there to firmly support her with his huge, once clumsy hand, and to listen and soothe when she talks to him about Bastien. And when she looks up at him, calm and collected, the Iron Lady once more, there is a flicker of gratitude in her eyes. Because she, too, has learned something from her student.  
  
  
Dorian teaches him to wield the elements of destruction in a fight, to make the sky bleed purple with deadly lightning, and to make the earth crack and gush out jets of flame.  
  
They have already set many a training dummy on fire side by side as they train in Skyhold's courtyard, the huge Qunari trying awkwardly to synchronize his movements with those of the smaller, graceful human. And every time the poor straw thing burns to a crisp, Dorian always claps his hand against his big friend's back and says mischievously,  
  
'Well, that was a delight, wasn't it? You have to learn to relish your magic, my good fellow! You have the power to light things up with your mind - better make it a fantastical show, eh?'  
  
And when they are done with torching dummies, they slow down a little and trace runes together on the ground, intended to erupt with a gust of chilling wind, knocking back whoever steps on them and covering this hapless wretch's flesh in a constricting crust of ice. Farkhad's lines and symbols are crooked and loopy at first, earning him many a friendly jibe from Dorian - but he does learn, eventually.  
  
And even though he will never stride across the battlefield with the domineering confidence of his Tevinter companion, a spitting dark tempest following in his wake, at least he no longer shrieks in terror at the sight of flame tongues shooting out of his own fingertips, and the 'fantastical show' of his magic fireworks comes to draw a shy little smile out of him.  
  
When there are no more straw victims to turn to cinders, and no ground to cover with glowing lines, Farkhad and Dorian rest side by side, facing a hearth that the Qunari has lit all by himself, with a (very proud) shot of conjured flame, and talk about the victories this day has brought them. Victories that have nothing to do with unleashing their battle magic.  
  
Farkhad talks a bit about Josephine, and how lucky he is to have earned the favour of such a beautiful, gracious, refined lady - but then, he mumbles off into silence, and allows Dorian to tell him excitedly about how Farkhad's former Ben-Hassrath kinsman keeps referring to him as 'kadan', 'which is Qunlat for "my heart", is it not?'. About how he still cannot believe that someone is using such an endearment to refer to him, that he has been found worthy of affection, of something more than just a fleeting, forgettable affair...  
  
And, at the height of his boyishly carefree, bubbling tide of speech, Dorian checks himself and looks at Farkhad, taken aback by his own candour and a little bit ashamed of it - and when he sees that the Qunari mage's broad grey face is glowing with a smile of joy, he leans back, making himself even more comfortable, and allows his friend to hug him... And melts into a content grin that he would never have allowed himself back in Tevinter. Because he, too, has learned something from his student.  
  
  
Dorian's one-time mentor, now disgraced and exiled and bound into the Inquisition's service, also teaches Farkhad - how to bend the Veil to his will and transport himself and small objects across a short distance at breakneck speed; how to lift things up into the air using not his natural muscle strength but the concentrated force of thought; how to slow down the charging enemies so that their every step is stretched out into a painful eternity.  
  
It was the younger Tevinter's idea. 'I cannot stand to see him so despondent,' he told Farkhad when the latter brought up visiting the imprisoned Venatori in his cell-turned-study. 'Perhaps if there was something that brought back at least a shadow of what he once was... Like - like having an apprentice!'.  
  
The old man himself was initially not too thrilled with the idea, and even tried to slam his heavy door in the tentatively tiptoeing Qunari's face.  
  
'I am already doing a job for the Inquisition,' he snapped, turning his face away. 'I will not endure coddling it smug brat of a leader! Kindly stop tormenting me any further - unless you want me to assault you with a fire bolt... Maybe that will finally get me executed'.  
  
But, upon Dorian's insistence, Farkhad did not leave him be; and after a while, they did begin their lessons, and the old Tevinter saw that the Inquisitor is not, in fact, a smug brat.  
  
It took a while for him to warm up to his former nemesis; it took a while for a glimmer of keen interest to appear in his dim, dead eyes; it took a while before he began acknowledging Farkhad's successful spellcasting with an inkling of a smile. But they did get there; and the Venatori exile now looks on with pride as his grey-skinned, ram-horned apprentice freezes a falling flowerpot in mid-air before it can fall and break, and makes a quiet, subtle joke if the young Qunari's thread of telekinetic magic catches at his own foot, and shakes his hand when the class is over, telling Farkhad sincerely that he is looking forward to his next visit.  
  
'I never thought I would... look forward to anything again,' he confesses - and just for a moment, his perpetual frown smoothes. Because he, too, has learned something from his student.  
  
  
And finally, Solas teaches Farkhad to walk the Fade. He reveals the enchanting secrets and the dangerous pitfalls concealed by the realm of dreams, and helps the timid, uncertain Qunari see that even he, untrained, un-Harrowed, has it in him not to fall prey to the demons he used to be so terrified of as a child.  
  
While their bodies rest in their Skyhold quarters or at a campsite in some remote corner of the wilderness, they plunge into the ever-shifting green mists, and walk across bridges that lead towards the sky... or maybe are twisted upside down so that their heads almost touch the water. They relive the memories of ages past, and unravel the cunning illusions spun by the denizens of the Fade out of the threads of their own subconscious.  
  
And after every walk with Solas, Farkhad wakes up insipired and, back in the world of solid forms and unchanging laws of nature, he whips out his trusty quill and parchment, and turns the whispers of the spirits into poems, generously borrowing the metaphors he saw quite literally shape themselves before his eyes when he traversed the dreamland. Like the vision of the clouds in the wintry sky turning into heavy fur wraps to warm the freezing moon, which is not the moon at all, but the round porcelain mask of an Orlesian mademoiselle, and the heaving sea below is her many-folded, glossy silken gown. Or the red street light's reflection across the wet pavement oozing like a streak of blood, dripping off the knife of an assassin that has just completed a job at a nearby pleasure house (that is a dark image, and Farkhad did not really enjoy it when the spirits showed him that, but at least, once he wrote down the description, it turned into something... semi-Varric-style?). Or dandelion seedlings floating through the hot, shimmering air on a summer day till the blend into a fuzzy white halo around the head of an elven woman that has sat down to rest in the green meadow.  
  
Farkhad reads out some things out of what he has written to Solas - one of the few people (apart from Josephine, of course) that he does not feel uncomfortable to share his poetry with. His blue eyes shine with child-like excitement when he does that; and he feels so full of life and warmth and happiness; so... so real. And the Dread Wolf bows his head, frowning at the sapling of fondness towards this trusting young Qunari that is taking root in his heart; and wonders whether he, too, has learned something from his student.


End file.
